We begin the redemption story of the Seder by talking about the Matza as the bread of affliction that our ancestors before us ate, and we invite whoever is hungry to join us; concluding that while we may be in exile now, next year we will be free.

If you think about it for just a moment, it’s a strange invitation.

It is one thing to invite someone to a steak dinner; what sort of invitation is it to share in my bread of affliction?

R’ Jonathan Sacks teaches that what transforms the bread of affliction into the bread of freedom is the willingness to share with others.

The Maharal notes that the reason the Exodus is so fundamental is that it associates Judaism with an essential quality of intrinsic freedom to act as we choose with no external coercive influence.

Freedom is oxygen for the soul, and mental freedom cannot be taken away.

Rav Kook explains that the difference between a slave and a free man is not solely defined by socio-economic standing. There can be an enlightened slave whose spirit is free and a free man with the mentality of a slave, whose whole life is lived on other people’s terms.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe taught that Elazar ben Azariah discovered Ben Zoma’s teaching to recall the Exodus at nights on the day he came to power; because it is a leader’s duty to be a beacon of hope during times of darkness and difficulty.

The Jews of that time were physically freed from slavery, but mentally, they never left. They stood at the Red Sea and Sinai, yet spent 40 lost years pining to go back “home” to Egypt.

God can save you from Egypt, but not even God can save you from yourself.

At any moment, just by sharing with others, we can become partners in redemption.

One of Judaism’s treasured traditions is entertaining guests. We praise altruism and aspire to emulate role models who practiced it, Avraham foremost among them.

As Avraham recovers from circumcision, the mark on his body that symbolizes his family’s covenant with God, he receives a remarkable visitor – no less than God Himself:

וַיֵּרָאאֵלָיוה’, בְּאֵלֹנֵימַמְרֵא; וְהוּאיֹשֵׁבפֶּתַח–הָאֹהֶל, כְּחֹםהַיּוֹם – Hashem appeared to him on the plains of Mamre, as he sat by the tent door in the heat of the day. (18:1)

More remarkable still is that no sooner has God just begun Avraham, that Avraham interrupts his visitor to welcome more guests!

וַיִּשָּׂאעֵינָיו, וַיַּרְא, וְהִנֵּהשְׁלֹשָׁהאֲנָשִׁים, נִצָּבִיםעָלָיו; וַיַּרְא, וַיָּרָץלִקְרָאתָםמִפֶּתַחהָאֹהֶל, וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ, אָרְצָה – He lifted his eyes and looked, and, saw three men standing nearby; and when he noticed them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed down to the earth, (18:2)

The Midrash imagines that Avraham quite literally interrupted Hashem, and asked that He wait. The Gemara learns from this episode that hospitality is even better than welcoming God.

This teaching might seem remarkable. How can something be more important than God?

The Maharal explains that when we welcome guests, we are embracing the image of God in other people. In which case, loving human and loving God aren’t so different.

The Malbim explains that it is precisely by loving others that demonstrates how much we love God, which is why hospitality is subordinate to welcoming God. Avraham calls the men his masters, and ask them not to leave – אֲדֹנָי, אִם–נָאמָצָאתִיחֵןבְּעֵינֶיךָ—אַל–נָאתַעֲבֹר, מֵעַלעַבְדֶּךָ. But this is also a name of God,implying the moment Avraham asked Hashem to wait!

R’ Jonathan Sacks this story, God is happy to wait, to teach us the essential lesson that we don’t show our love of God by fasting, retreating into the mountains, vowing silence, or abstaining from earthly things; we show our love of God in our interaction with other humans.

The epitome of what Judaism teaches us is that holiness is not some abstract thing that transcends the trifles of mundane living. It is precisely in our day to day lives that we can encounter and create holiness.

God Himself teaches us that nothing is holier than making space in your life and home for others, and we honor God most by honoring those on His image, humankind.

We think of the Ten Commandments as a monumental national event. Yet the opening words, of the very first time Hashem spoke to humanity, were not addressed to a wider audience. The words used are deeply personal. אָנֹכִי ה’ אֱלֹקֶיךָ – not plural, everyone’s, but singular, yours. This is a very personal God, establishing intimate contact with individuals; not just to Judaism in general and greater humanity at large.

And yet through Chazal, this is understood slightly differently. Rashi understands that in this divine communication, Hashem spoke through Moshe, and in a sense, to Moshe exclusively. This personal communication was to and through Moshe, and relayed to everyone else. The Midrash understands that this was personal to Moshe to the extent that in the aftermath of the Golden Calf, he could avert catastrophe by saying that the Jews had not betrayed אָנֹכִי ה’ אֱלֹקֶיךָ, to the exclusion of idols, and that this was said to him alone. The personal God of Sinai was Moshe’s only!

So how are we supposed to understand the events at Sinai; can God be personal with humanity?

When Yisro is introduced to us, we learn how he heard what happened to Moshe and the people of Israel:

That is, the Torah sets up Moshe not just as the leader of the nation of Israel, but as a separate category, on par with the rest of his entire people combined. The Maharal deduces that in doing so, the Torah recognises Moshe’s status and achievement as someone who had transcended everyone else and could not be grouped together with anyone. He was in a class of his own.

As someone who had transcended Israel, his soulmate came from beyond Israel too. His role was to shape and form a nation of poor, ignorant, downtrodden slaves into the image of the divine on this planet. It could not be done from within; it necessarily had to come from beyond; in the form of Tziporah. Together, they crafted Israel’s destiny.

But how does a human transcend? No man was like Moshe, but what happened to him that he could do it? How can a human survive forty days and nights without any basic necessities the human body requires?

The Maharal notes that forty days thematically indicates a new aspect of creation. It takes forty days for a foetus to take shape, and it took forty days for the era of the Flood to transition, and the new world to emerge. Forty days on Sinai is a cryptic allusion to a new aspect awakened in Moshe. He was no longer Moshe, a human. He had become Moshe, the prophet.

He had become the mouthpiece for God to reveal Himself to mankind.

But far more than a loudspeaker, he was the divine interface. He was the spring from which we could drink God’s word and be nourished and grow. The Torah was imbued with his energy, and through him we too could transcend. He was on the wavelength to absorb the Torah, and it was channeled to us.

This is the true meaning of Moshe’s riposte to Hashem after the Golden Calf, that Sinai was Moshe’s personal God, and the people did not deserve to be wiped out. They could not receive the full power or scope of God’s word; only Moshe could. This is the “out” that Sinai in the singular provides. Rav Tzadok teaches that the personal God of Sinai is always there for us to reach out to, to aspire to. Criticallly, it is not a standard against which the people who could not rise to the challenge were held. Moshe’s role was to help everyone get there. They weren’t yet, but that was ok. The personal God of Sinai is always there, waiting for us. And we learnt that from Moshe.

This is why he plays a central part in God’s revelation to mankind. He was instrumental. Moshe was truly Rabbeinu – our teacher. He taught us how to interface and connect to the Torah – it was not just a repetition of what he’d been told. It is a living, breathing thing, and it is Moshe’s life that it was imbued with. Through him, Judaism and mankind learned that God wants a personal connection to us, if only we reach out.

Bilam was a prophet who had the abilities and potential to match Moshe, but usurped his skills and talents for personal gain and celebrity. He was hired by Balak to curse the Jews because his utterances were famously effective.

Chazal understood that he could identify a certain moment of the day in which God is “angry”, and in that moment, release God’s anger on his target.

What does that even mean?

The Midrash teaches that originally, God sought to create the world through a prism of strict justice; evil would be instantly punished, and good would be instantly rewarded. But existence would be untenable this way, and could never last. It was decided that an equal measure of mercy would be fused to creation, and the two balanced into equilibrium.

What Bilam could identify was the moment of indignance and outrage at the literal “injustice” of existence not being held to account.

Tosfos in Brachos wonder how much someone could really manage to squeeze in to a brief and transient moment, answering that he could cast his gaze on targets and say “כלם” – “Destroy them”. This was the curse he would have attempted to lay on the Jews..

The Maharal analyses how potent this curse would truly be. כלם is the reverse anagram of מלך – king, a critical function in Judaism; in Devarim, Moshe’s final speech to the people, he tells them the mitzva of appointing a king when they settle the land of Israel – שׂוֹם תָּשִׂים עָלֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ – Appoint a king over yourselves (17:15). The function of the king is a hierarchy that organises and implements a governmental structure. He organises the system.

The Maharal explains that מלך is the initial letters of מח, לב, כבד – brain, heart, liver. These are metaphors for the procedure and development of action. There is a thought, a feeling, and an instinct. The order is critical – the intellect has to operate the system, and everything follows suit. This is the charge of every Jew – to become a master of the self – מלך – like an actual king, to perfect the structure of the self and surroundings.

In the book of Shmuel, the prophet is approached and asked for a king “like the tribes and nations have”, and the people are rebuked. But weren’t they correct; was it not one of things Moshe told them?

What the Jews asked Shmuel was not for such a king – they wanted a king “like the tribes and nations have”. This is not the monarch function that is critical to Jewish makeup.

What Bilam tried to do was invert this capacity – he wanted to curse the Jews with “כלם” – the reverse of מח, לב, כבד, and the order would degenerate into כבד, לב, מח – where the instinct is dominant, and intellect and soul are enslaved to it – the antithesis of the Jews’ charge, and truly the ultimate curse.

The Maharal explains that the reason Avraham, Yitzchak and Yakov did not and could not have received the Torah is because they had no “nation”. They were individuals, and individuals pass on. The Torah is eternal and cannot fade into obscurity; it must therefore be given to a nation.

Chazal understand that after the Golden Calf, Moshe argued in defence of the Jews that אָנֹכִי הֹ’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ was only said to Moshe, in the second person singular, so technically, the Jews had not violated אָנֹכִי הֹ’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ by engaging in idol worship.

But if the Torah is given to a nation, not an individual, how could Moshe, claim he received it alone?

The answer lies in understanding Moshe’s role.

After departing Egypt and being saved at the Red Sea, the Torah emphasises what Yisro heard had happened, to “Moshe and his people”. Rashi deduces that the Torah implies that Moshe was equal to the whole nation.

Much later, in the final stages of the journey through the desert, Moshe sent emissaries to Edom, requesting permission for the Jews to pass through on their way to Canaan, which was declined. Throughout the episode, the Torah alternates between Moshe and the Jews as having sent them, from which Rashi deduces that the Torah illustrates that a national leader acts in the capacity as a proxy for the entire people.

The Maharal points out that these seem mutually exclusive. If Moshe was equal to the Jews, he achieved something greater than any other leader. How then, would his actions shed light on the authority of other leaders, that they act as agents of the people they represent?

R’ Yehoshua Hartman explains that Moshe being equal to the Jewish people isn’t necessarily literal. If he were to pray, it’s not as though that would count as their prayer too.

A leader is an agent or representative of his people. Moshe was more than that; the “equality” meant his actions carried the same weight as the nation itself. Regular activity, such as diplomacy like sending emissaries, is an act of any leader as a representative, and it is from this aspect that we can extrapolate from Moshe to other leaders.

Moshe was a microcosm of Yisrael. There were the 600,000 people at Sinai, plus Moshe. Whatever made them into Yisrael at Sinai, Moshe already was. He could claim that only he heard אָנֹכִי הֹ’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ because the qualities of Yisrael at Sinai that he represented were not guilty of the Golden Calf. This is the intent behind labelling him equal to the nation.

Moshe was the pinnacle of Yisrael and humanity. He represented all that was good in the people. The people he represented could not be the people who were guilty of the Golden Calf, and thus, the people arguably ought not to be held guilty at all.

The Torah details curses, of tragedy and atrocities, that occur when the Jewish nation strays from its course of bettering mankind. One of them stands out:

וְכָשְׁלוּ אִישׁ בְּאָחִיו – Each man will stumble over his brother (26:37)

The literal translation is incorrect. Rashi explains that this curse is the inverse of the famous maxim of כל ישראל ערבין זה לזה – all of Israel are accountable for one another. The curse is that Jews will stumble over other Jews sins.

The Maharal explains why the literal meaning is incorrect. Tripping over someone has nothing to do with brotherhood. When the Torah says וְכָשְׁלוּ אִישׁ בְּאָחִיו – the tripping is because of the brotherhood – the tripping is over the accountability that brotherhood engenders.

The root of the word ערבין is the word ערב – meaning mixture – it is the same root as the word for tasty, evening, guarantor, Arab and eruv. R’ Ezra Hartman explains that these are all mixtures; An eruv mixes property rights; tasty is the cuisine that “mixes” when digested; evening is twilight, in contrast to בקר which means “differentiate”, in twilight things are hard to make out. The name for ערבי – Arab, is a mixture too. The pasuk in Bereishis says of Yishmael, their ancestor, that יָדוֹ בַכֹּל וְיַד כֹּל בו – his hand will be upon all, and everyone’s hand upon him (16:12). Today, we see this as terrorism. Terrorism has no borders – it is potentially everywhere, in a school, a mall, a bus, a train or a plane.

Rashi saw fit to quote that the solution is כל ישראל ערבין – the nation is a unit, a brotherhood, with components accountable for one another – the Torah assures us that we will stumble on our brother’s problems it if we do not help them.

וַיֹּאמֶר, כִּי-יָד עַל-כֵּס יָהּ, מִלְחָמָה לה’, בַּעֲמָלֵק–מִדֹּר, דֹּר – And God said, “Because there is a hand upon the throne of God; Hashem’s war with Amalek spans all generations,”. (Shemos 17:15)

This prominent statement, the conclusion of Parashas Zachor, cries out profusely for elaboration. Rashi points out that the word used for throne in this verse, כס, has a different spelling to the usual כסא. In addition, the Name of God that is used in this pasuk is י-ה , which contains only half of the letters that comprise Hashem’s full and ineffable four-letter appellation. Rashi concludes that this is part of the Divine oath; that neither God’s Name nor His throne can be complete until Amalek’s name is eradicated.

The Maharal probes the unique essence of Amalek and why he is such a formidable opponent of God, Truth and Yisrael. The Maharal states that unlike other nations, Amalek is an incessant enemy of the Jews, who opposes them across the ages. Indeed, it was revealed in Sefer Bereishis, through the inability of Esav and Yaakov to reside in the same womb, that Amalek and the Jews are incompatible, diametrically opposing entities. If one rises, the other must fall. This conflict was glaringly illustrated when Amalek attacked the Jews as they came out of Mitzrayim. As Rashi comments, Amalek is even prepared to commit suicide if it will dampen the flames of Jewish inspiration. The Amalekim are the original suicide attackers.

It is surely a fundamental Torah precept that God is omnipotent and infinite; his completeness is independent and indestructible. Yet how exactly does Amalek cause Hashem’s Name to be rendered incomplete? Furthermore, how does Amalek seemingly dethrone Hashem? The imagery of the Midrash appears to be equally baffling.

The Maharal explains that Hashem’s name reflects absolute oneness. Indeed, we declare thrice daily the mantra, שמע ישראל ה אלוקינו ה אחד – Hashem’s Name is One. Now, oneness is harmony’s partner and is undermined by discord and disunity, which is exactly what Amalek stands for. Because a partnership between Yisrael and Amalek is impossible, division enters the universe.

This broken world now becomes a place where unity and the Divine Name are concealed since oneness is blurred by Amalek’s obfuscation. Of course, Hashem is impeccably One and is utterly unaffected; it is just that our perception of Him and His oneness is diminished by Amalek’s divisive influence. The word Amalek, which has the numerical value of ספק – meaning doubt, brings exactly that into our realm. Amalek’s existence causes us doubt to ourselves and our better judgment. What was once a clear and vivid appreciation of God’s uniqueness becomes fragile, fractured and belittled.

This also explains how Amalek limits God’s throne. The throne represents the concept of Malchus, Hashem’s undisputed kingship over the world and its inhabitants. This notion is also rooted in the idea of God’s oneness. Only when there is a unique and empowered monarch can true sovereignty reign supreme. That is the reason, writes the Maharal, why we say, ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד – “Praise the glory of His Kingdom for eternity” immediately following the declaration of unity, ה אחד in Shema. This demonstrates that God’s Kingdom is predicated on His uniqueness as king. Amalek’s splinters, contaminates and ultimately destroys the clarity of this recognition.

The task on Purim is the alchemist’s charge: to turn the turpitude of Amalek into religious gold. When we blur the distinction between Baruch Mordechai and Arur Haman, between good and evil, we revisit a world in which Amalek no longer dulls our senses and numbs our hearts. We catch a glimpse of the Source of all, the King of kings, Whose existence is unlike any other and Who lovingly awaits our reaching out Him.

The Maharal observes that all halachos of Korban Pesach pertain to unity; roasted in one piece, the bones have to be kept whole, eaten in one group, in one place, at one time etc. All these are meant to reflect that ה’ אחד – that G-d is One, and His unity is everywhere.

However, this would seem to be at odds Korbanos in general, that are meant to reflect the person bringing it. If the Korban Pesach displays Hashem’s unity, how does it relate to the people bringing it?

R’ Yehoshua Hartman explains that as a nation, we reflect the אחדות of Hashem. We have nothing to rely on but Hashem, with no fall back option. This is true across the spectrum of Judaism. In Egypt if it doesn’t rain for years, it’s not a problem, as the Nile provides water. If Israel has a poor rain season one year, there are serious shortages, and people start worrying(and when people start worrying, they start praying). We can place our faith in Hashem alone.

When the Jews said נעשה ונשמע – we will do and we will listen – what they were effectively meant was that they did not enter the equation. When Hashem asks something of us, that is all that matters.

This explains why so many Jews in history were willing to be מוסר נפש – display self-sacrifice – rather than cause a desecration of Hashem’s name. The rationale behind this is that Hashem doesn’t want something done, and if it is done, it’s removing oneself from godliness, as it is antithetical to what God wants.

In reality then, there is no contradiction. We say in Aleinu that אין עוד – which means there is no other reality other than what G-d wants. No one symbolises this more than the Jews. The Korban Pesach reflects both Hashem’s unity and the people bringing it.